Plywood and Vermouth

This sight greeted me when I rounded the corner of our patio after getting home Friday -- a mysterious piece of plywood propped against our fence. I assumed it must belong to the Russians, so I picked it up and took it to their front door, and sure enough, they said it had blown down from their terrace during the windy weather the week before. I guess they're still working on the terrace -- they were up there yesterday doing something with a machine that was either a vacuum or a blower. Who knows?

I, meanwhile, took care of the last of our annual charitable donations to the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Planned Parenthood -- and I doubled them all this year in the wake of Trump's election. That's one way I can resist the rising tide of Trumpism. Take that, Donald!

I also addressed some business with the British government. Those of us who are immigrants to this sceptered isle, but not yet citizens, are being switched to something called an "eVisa" that replaces our biometric residence permits. The permits are a little card that we can carry in our wallet, a bit like a driver's license, but they all expire at the end of this month, to be replaced by an electronic permit that the government holds for us so it can't be lost or counterfeited. In order to access this eVisa, we have to create an account with the immigration authorities and view it online. So I did that. I have no idea how this is going to work in airports and that kind of thing, but we'll see.

Dave and I really need to take the plunge and become citizens. It's just one more hurdle we haven't yet leapt (too many athletic metaphors?), but there's no reason not to. We've been here long enough and we've passed all the tests -- we just have to apply. Maybe that's a good new year's resolution.

OK, let's talk about something important -- vermouth.

When Dave and I went to Whitstable, I brought with us a nearly empty bottle of Martini dry vermouth, in order to make my (occasional!) martinis. An individual martini calls for only a tiny whisper of vermouth, so when it was time to come home, we questioned whether it was worth transporting this practically empty bottle back to London. I ultimately did so, even though, and I am not kidding, there's probably only 2/3 of an inch of vermouth in the bottom of the bottle.

Once back here, Dave asked if we should get more. I opened our liquor cabinet, such as it is (above), and found that we already have two more large bottles of dry vermouth. So no, we don't need to buy more! But then I wondered if they're still good. God knows where they came from, and as you can see, they have cobwebs on them. They've both been opened. I'm sure they've been down there for years.

I've always assumed vermouth can hang around forever without going bad. But reading online, I see that some people say it does in fact get rancid, and recommend that it be refrigerated and drunk within a month (!) of opening the bottle. Now, that just seems ridiculous to me -- the bottle I brought back from Whitstable has been opened for at least five years, at room temperature, and I've never noticed a problem. Then again, maybe this is why I'm not a fan of vermouth.

Anyway, we're not buying any in the immediate future. But I got to thinking about the contents of this cabinet. All I ever drink at home is wine, gin and the aforementioned smidgin of occasional vermouth. Dave, because of his Crohn's, drinks nothing. Why do we have two bottles of grenadine syrup, Calvados, Angostura bitters, a bottle of cheap cognac, Cointreau, pastis, limoncello and tequila -- not to mention nearly two liters of vermouth? Some of these were gifts, some were bought for cooking, and a lot of it is very old. I probably should do some cleaning-out here.

This is what it looked like around our house yesterday. Everyone is still exhausted from our travels. There was a lot of snoring.

I ate some left over fortune cookies for a midday snack, and the fortune in one of them said, "Accept the next proposition you hear." I hope it's a good one!